Nuclear wasteLoa Alamos lab has nowhere to send its nuclear waste
With the U.S. only underground nuclear waste repository shut down owing to radiation leaks, Los Alamos National Laboratory found itself facing a problem: it has to find an alternative place to ship toxic waste from a mesa on its northern New Mexico campus, and it has until June to do so. The problem is shared by other sites with nuclear waste. The fact that the repository has been shut down indefinitely means that soon nuclear waste will begin to backup ate various locations around the country where nuclear weapons-related activity is taking place.
With the U.S. only underground nuclear waste repository shut down owing to radiation leaks (see “Nuclear waste kept in parking area as N.M. repository remains closed,” HSNW, 7 March 2014), Los Alamos National Laboratory found itself facing a problem: it has to find an alternative place to ship toxic waste from a mesa on its northern New Mexico campus, and it has until June to do so.
Albuquerque Journal quotes lab spokesman Matthew Nerzig to say that officials are exploring other options for removing the last of nearly 4,000 gallons of plutonium-contaminated tools and protective gear from its bomb-building labs if the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) in Carlsbad remains closed indefinitely.
The waste, some of which dug up from decades-old, unsealed dumps in the northern New Mexico mountains, is currently stored outside with little protection. The risk of continuing to keep the waste outside was highlighted three years ago when a massive wildfire reached the perimeter of the lab property.
That experience convinced lab officials to that the radioactive waste should be removed from the mesa by the end of June. The lab was on schedule to complete the removal of the nearly 4,000 barrels to WIPP when the radiation problems there forced the WIPP to shut down.
“We are determined to complete the campaign on time and meet our obligations to the state of New Mexico,” Nerzig told the Journal. “Toward that end, we are evaluating options to minimize any adverse impact of the WIPP event on LANL (the Los Alamos National Laboratory) and other transuranic waste-generator sites.”
Don Hancock of the Southwest Information and Research Center, an Albuquerque-based environmental organization, said that one such option could be shipping the waste for temporary storage at the Idaho National Laboratory.
The problem the Los Alamos lab faces is shared by other sites with nuclear waste. WIPP is the federal government’s only underground repository for nuclear waste, and the fact that it has been shut down indefinitely means that soon nuclear waste will begin to backup ate various locations around the country where nuclear weapons-related activity is taking place.
